“He would have liked to say goodbye,
Shake hands with many friends.
In Highgate now his finger-bones
Stick through his finger-ends.You, God, who treat him thus and thus,
Say, "Save his soul and pray."
You ask me to believe You and
I only see decay.”

"On a Portrait of a Deaf Man" line 25, from Old Lights for New Chancels.
Poetry

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John Betjeman 30
English poet, writer and broadcaster 1906–1984

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